The Survivalist

I overall liked the movie. It didn't try to take on a large topic. It wasn't fun or nice or had a happy ending, just a well told story. Many movies are trying to be more than they are, and this wasn't one of them. It was very well acted and has great visuals. Often times, movie will go for 1-3 minutes without any dialogue, which I found to be an effective way to tell the story.

Main 3 characters didn't have any allusions of hope; they were just there trying to survive day-to-day. I am a fan of the Dystopian genre; however, often times, it ends up being unrealistic or trying to a franchise maker. This didn't try any of it, and just succeeded to be a strong movie.

Extraordinarily well executed, fresh, replete with lots of smart details bring it all to life. The characters are believable; raw and wild, running on their baser instincts, struggling to be civil in a world where gnash-toothed animals survive and civility only gets you dead. They try to be civil! Oh bless their hearts they try.

What I loved the most is the transformation you see in the characters; they go from feral, viciously unlikeable creeps to slowly warming up and right before your eyes they bloom into something like humans again, full of love and empathy and hate and greed and loyalty and all the paradoxes of the human condition. The setting is well fleshed out, with enough mystery regarding the details of society's breakdown to suspend any disbelief you might have about the premise. You feel like it's real. The characters further help you sense the desperation and anxiety of the world portrayed here. It's very somatic; you feel the hunger, the distrust, the anger and the violence of revenge.

I was left feeling grateful for the world I live in, which is the purpose of theme I suspect. It really could be worse. Watch this movie and feel intense gratitude for your humdrum life. Enjoy!

As a species, us humans have a curious fondness for grim and gloomy art. From skull tattoos to death metal bands, there is an unrelenting fascination with the macabre and morbid, and films are no exception. It's surprisingly difficult to recall a genuinely gloomy film which didn't get inexorable approval. From the true life horrors of Hotel Rwanda and The Elephant Man through to the fictional bleakness of The Road, Nil by Mouth and Tyrannosaur, there is something peculiarly fascinating about watching unrelenting despair and observing the malevolence of humanity on the big screen.

Intentionally set in an undefined year of the near future in an indeterminate part of the world, the human population has grown exponentially to the point of saturation; food is at a premium and from the movies sporadic intimations, society has regressed back to packs of hunter/gatherers. The survivalist (as we never learn his true name) has managed to create a small farmstead in the middle of a dense wood just large enough to keep himself self-sufficient. When mother and daughter couple Kathryn (Fouere) and Milja (Goth) appear at his door asking for food and shelter, the survivalist's controlled unaccompanied existence is threatened as his morals become confused; to keep himself safe or to assist his visitor's needs.

A sound method to keep costs low when producing a movie is to isolate the action to a restricted area, keep the number of actors limited and construct a simple and focused story line. The risk with this technique is that the movie becomes more of a theatrical production where each moment becomes intensified and less freedom is given to procrastination. It is unsurprising therefore that the lead character is given to an actor with an education in walking the boards. The film devotes a significant amount of time to building McCann's character, devoid of dialogue and with extensive intense close ups.

Due to the utter desperation of The Survivalist's plot, it requires total commitment to its audience and at times starts to meander yet manages to pull itself back every time just before the bleakness becomes tiresome.

There are enough plot and character surprises to keep the movie interesting, the acting is excellent and the limited scope of environment constantly feels claustrophobic but never artistically restrictive. The Survivalist demonstrates the way, once the whiteboard of social acceptability has been wiped clean, intimacy and sex become acceptable tradeable commodities.

The Survivalist is grim, depressing and about the least life- affirming film you're likely to see this year. Yet it is tense, wonderfully acted and a fascinating illustration of the instinctive brutality of humanity's will to survive.

This film is a prime example of how well researched material can take the smallest of budgets, minimal dialogue and a complete lack of soundtrack and turn this into a masterpiece.

The viewer is given no background story and none of the characters are fleshed out. There is next to no information on anyone in the film apart from the main character, and even with him, there is very little information given. But that is the point. The strength of the film lies not in the story but the idea of what one does to survive when life goes back to basics. The viewer's attention is drawn to the intensity of the situation, the survival skills that are actual knowledge one needs to survive in the wild. The cold and barren undertone of the film should have been the reason for its failure. Instead, it serves to emphasise the stark and bleak situation that all the characters are faced with. The script does not pull any punches and a strong stomach is needed for some scenes. And if you get the gist of the film so far, then you will already know whether there is a happy ending or not...

Definitely a good movie to see. I think the Survivalist says maybe 20 lines in the whole movie but he plays the role perfect. I like the fact that it was hard to predict which direction the movie is going. One thing I am sure everyone hates is to waste their life watching a ridiculous movie that is so predictable where they even throw in bad acting. This won't take you there. At first I thought it was going to be like The Walking Dead but I was happy to see that it was far from that nonsense. The Walking Dead is just another overrated TV show. Enjoy.

James